Message from our CEO, Richard Eckerstrom

Well, it has happened again. A Fortune 50 company came to us for help with their contract management after spending 6 fruitless months with a competitor, one more company claiming on the front page of their website to be “the leading supplier” of contract management software.

How did our competition strike out?


Strike One! The software was not actually able to do some of the things the company sales people had promised, including some rather fundamental functionality that was key to the customer.

Strike Two! When this shortfall became apparent, the supplier’s first response was to try to convince their customer that they did not really need that functionality, that it was not “best practices.”

Strike Three! When reminded that the customer actually might know their business somewhat better that the software supplier, and that the functionality was, indeed, required, the supplier offered to do it, but at additional, custom development billing rates.

Strike Four! After six months of expensive work, the supplier still could not provide the functionality.

Did I get to four strikes? Well, I understand there was actually a whole inning of strikes. But, as I said, we at Ecteon have seen this many times before.

So what makes Ecteon different? The key to understanding Ecteon’s contract solution is to understand that our solution is really your solution. We provide a platform for you to take your processes, your knowledge, and your competitive advantages and harness them through a highly flexible contract management system that adapts to you, rather than requiring you to adapt to it.

Central to our philosophy is that we believe our customers are the experts. Certainly our 20+ years of experience means we bring comprehensive knowledge to the table, but we still think of the customers as the experts in their processes, their companies, their industries. We don’t come to them saying that we have descended from on high to bless them with our “best-in-class”, jargon-heavy wisdom. Contraxx itself is specifically designed to support this philosophy. As we like to say, Contraxx was built entirely out of the real needs of real contract mangers.

And, we have the best customers in the world. They have been supportive, loyal, challenging, and insightful. They have introduced us to new users. They have been incredibly helpful in serving as references to prospective customers, both about Contraxx itself, and also in helping people new to contract management software determine what is important. They have challenged us to grow with them. I can’t name names due to confidentiality requirements, but they know who they are: Judy, Debbie, Bianca, Lou, Scott, Jim, Katie, Colin, Dan, Monica, Jeff, Edmund, Sue…. We certainly can’t thank them enough.

As you evaluate your options for a contract management solution at your organization, I encourage you to challenge our sales people (and our competition’s) to demonstrate specifically how our software (and our competition’s) will adapt to meet the unique requirements of your organization.

Make sure it’s contract management on your terms.

Sincerely,

Richard Eckerstrom
CEO